Kids in the Hall

I arrived in Edmonton earlier in the week. Before my first meeting I met up with Dave Redekopp and we went off for breakfast at the Kids in the Hall bistro?????????. Dave was involved with originally setting up the Kids in the Hall project and it is a great idea. The project is a bistro based in the city hall run by kids from un???stable homes (hence Kids in the Hall – which also happens to be the name of the Canadian Monty Python- see Kids in the Hall). ?????????

It i???s a ?????????social enterpise (supported by some funding). The idea is to give kids access to some money, a job, the development of skills and to re-engage them in the education system. This is all supported by access to training and career development whilst the kids are in the programme. ????????????There is a bit more information??? on the ??????E4C website, While I was there I met a couple of the employees, one of whom is a graduate of the programme who was now spending her spare time creating a copy of the Mona Lisa to sell at the Kids in the Hall fundraising gala.

When I hear about things like this I’m always amazed at the entrepreneurial spirit that gets something like this up and running. But I’m also amazed that we don’t have more of this sort of thing. The elements of real work, training and support and attention to progression is what most of the social programmes government supports are supposed to be doing. What is more if this can be delivered with some of the costs being met by the social business this seems fantastic – but on the whole governments ignore or impede these initiatives and only celebrate them once they are up and running.